Bothering Children

“He is not. You’ve never met him.”

Prestien stood there with her fists planted on her hips. She made up stories all the time, but never did she act as if she really intended people to believe them- it was harmless stuff about fairies and things like that, up until today when she decided to claim she was friends with Sméagol, the creature with something to do with the Ring-bearer who lived underground somewhere in the Sixth Circle. Devrion had never even seen Sméagol, and didn’t know anyone who had.  

“He is my friend,” Prestien insisted, nevertheless. “He was lost in the City. I helped him. He was a little smaller than you, and he smelled dreadful because he had been in the sewers, but I did not say so because it would have been rude. My mother brought him home and gave him a drink of water and I asked him why his feet are webbed. He told me it is because he swims so much. I think that is what he was doing in the sewer.”

“I don’t believe you,” said Devrion. “Your mother doesn’t give me water when I ask.”

“That’s because you can get it at home, and Sméagol couldn’t because he was lost and thirsty.”

“Alright, if you have seen him, what manner of creature is he?”

“He’s a perian,” Prestien declared.

Like Peregrin, son of Paladin, and Meriadoc the Squire of Rohan? “He absolutely is not,” said Devrion. “You said he had webbed feet.”

“Yes, because he swims so much. He told me so!”

“You’ve never even seen him.”

She would not give it up, either. Every time they were all playing together and Clauron started talking about how he’d once seen Samwise the Brave at the market, Prestien started claiming that she was friends with Sméagol. If that wasn’t annoying enough, she also believed Olthon when he said the Ringfinder had stood outside his window once and told him poems- and a few days later she came up with a new story.

“Sméagol was outside my window last night,” she said breathlessly. “He was holding something wrapped in a cloth he wouldn’t show me. He said he had a grown-up problem he wouldn’t tell me about. My father went out to him to see what it was and then he told me Sméagol had found a dead soldier in the sewer and we were going to give him a decent burial.”

“He did not find a dead soldier in the sewer,” said Devrion. “I know you’re only little, but you ought to know better than to make up such things!”

One evening Devrion was leading her to the shops (oh, the tribulations of being the eldest cousin!) when she suddenly broke free of his grip with a little cry. She was heading for a dark shape that was shuffling around in the street.

“Get back here!” Devrion shouted.

“It’s Sméagol!”

The shape glanced back at her, froze briefly, and went scurrying away around the corner. Devrion caught up with Prestien and grabbed her small hand. “There! He doesn’t know you,” he said, yanking her closer with the roughness of someone who has just almost suffered the escape of a child for whom he has been made responsible. “Now stop telling lies!” He didn’t even think it had really been Sméagol.

Prestien scowled and blinked very fast. “I’m not lying. He must be too busy to stop.” 

“You don’t know him. You’ve never met-“ He stopped there because something was very close to him on his left side, a sort of clammy, angry presence. He turned his head, telling himself he was being foolish and nothing was there, dreading what was there and trembling, and too proud to resist looking.

Cold eyes gleamed back at him. “She is not a liar,” a sputtering, shrill voice said, “we is just too busy to stop, that is all, and he is a nasty rude little boy, he is!”

Devrion blinked a few times. Sméagol was standing upright, in a precarious bow-legged fashion, but upright- this made it easy to see that he was half a head shorter than Devrion, which took the dread out of his presence somewhat. But his shoulders were broad and his frame was wiry and tough, and his hands were bony and no doubt his knuckles hit like cut glass. Also, he was showing his fangs, and they were large.

“I’m sorry, sir,” said Devrion, who was a sensible child.

“Sir,” Sméagol scoffed, and crouched down on the ground, his eyes remaining fixed intently on Devrion’s. After a moment, though, he broke his gaze, and turned away, pulling his hood up over his face. “Sorry, he says; to us! He did not call Sméagol a liar, did he?” His voice was thin and petulant. “But he’s sorry to us, is he?”

Prestien ran in then and threw her arms around Sméagol’s neck and shoulders as if he was a friendly dog. Sméagol looked horrified.

“Thank you. No one would believe me,” she mumbled into his ear. It was a pointed ear. Devrion began to wonder if Sméagol really was a perian- then he noticed the webbed feet, and didn’t know what to think. He recalled- with great discomfort- that Prestien had mentioned the webbed feet before. She really had seen them.

Sméagol stammered something unintelligible and would not look at her. She let go and stepped back a bit.

“I’m sorry, Prestien,” said Devrion. He kicked at the ground. The experience of being scolded by an ugly old maybe-perian was new to him and he did not like it. He liked it all the less because he suspected that he had been unfair to Prestien, and while Sméagol might not be quite correct to snap and snarl, he was well within his rights to scold in some fashion.

Prestien turned a wide-eyed, hopeful face to him. “And now you’ll tell the others that I do know Sméagol, won’t you?”

“They won’t believe me..."

Sméagol had begun to slink away, so quietly that they had not noticed he was leaving, but now he stopped in his tracks and looked back at them. “What’s that, eh? They won’t believe him? Ssuch a shame.”

“Sméagol,” Prestien said, “he’s my friend, and he didn’t mean to hurt my feelings. I don’t want you to make him upset.”

“No?” Sméagol said. “What a lovely kind little girl she is. Ha, ha! But he has made himself upset by being nasty to people, hasn’t he?”

“But you didn’t need to yell at him.”

“Didn’t need to? No, perhaps not. But I wanted to. And I have. And I am not sorry for it at all.” He certainly didn’t sound sorry. “Now we must go; Sméagol is taking a letter and must make haste! He is busy.” This last he said rather defensively. “Like a wasp.”

“You mean busy like a bee,” said Devrion.

“No,” said Sméagol, with a very direct look at him. “Bees is busy doing nice things.”

He sounded so much like he thought Devrion to be an idiot of the highest order that Devrion actually began to feel a little foolish. Yes, of course Sméagol was more like a wasp.

“But taking a letter is nice,” said Prestien.

Sméagol just shook his head and looked tight-lipped.

“Well, good night, Sméagol,” said Prestien. “I hope your work goes well.”

Sméagol mumbled something as he scurried around the corner. Prestien turned to Devrion and beamed.

“Alright,” Devrion said, “I’ll tell them you really know him.” He had a horrible feeling that if he did not, Sméagol might find him somehow. 

 Devrion was respected by his friends and no one outright said they didn’t believe him, but he could feel the doubts coming off them. 

“What did he look like?” Himben asked politely.

“I’m not sure,” said Devrion. “It was quite dark, and he was wearing a hood…” He tried to summon up the memory of Sméagol’s angry face looking up into his. He’d been close enough to touch, but his face sort of slipped off of the surface of Devrion’s mind. Oddly, he found himself picturing a very small, very ordinary, dour-faced old man with most of his teeth missing. That was not what he had seen at the time.

Costion had been sitting on a crate nearby, listening to this, and now he hopped to his feet. “Here,” he said. “I know where Sméagol is supposed to live, and I think we should go and see him and settle it once and for all, and Prestien should come too.”

Devrion thought this sounded unwise, but he believed that if he said so his friends would infer that he had never really seen Sméagol and expected the creature to say so if called into question. So he simply followed Costion and Himben up the road, and along the way they collected Prestien.

They were stopped at the gate to the Sixth Circle. Himben’s uncle was one of the guards, and he asked: “Whatever are you coming here for? You don’t have any friends who live here, and there’s nothing you would care to buy for sale.”

Devrion interjected, hoping just a little that the guards would stop them. “We want to visit Sméagol, sir.”

“Sméagol? Why do you wish to see him?” the guard asked.

“He’s my friend,” Prestien asserted.

“Ah,” said the guard. “He is mine, too, I suspect. At least, he is friendly enough when he passes through the gate instead of deigning to climb over it. I am not sure he knows my face, however. I suspect all guards are alike to him.”

“Does he really climb over the gate?” Devrion asked.

“No, I misspoke. He usually prefers the wall, a little farther in closer to his house.”

The children all looked up at the wall, the height of it.

“I could not climb it,” said the guard. “We call him Ramreth, wall-climber, when we don’t wish him to know we are talking about him.”

The wall had no handholds or footholds. It was not built to be climbed- quite the opposite.

“If you would like to see him,” said the guard, “his building is the fourth on the left, that way; and he often sits in the window and calls to passers-by. But if he is inside with the shutters drawn you must leave him in peace.”

An invitation was not at all what Devrion had expected and his friends looked surprised too. Himben politely thanked the guard, and they all went inside. Only Prestien was smiling.

Twas easy enough to tell which was the right place because Sméagol was crouched in the window, looking about at the goings-on outside. He spotted them quickly, and watched them with interest. When he realized they were all coming towards his window, interest turned to horror, and as they drew near he vanished inside and slammed the shutters.

“Oh, well,” said Devrion, “Himben’s uncle said we must go away if he closes up the window. Prestien, no!” She was of course going right up to the window and calling for Sméagol.

The shutters opened enough to see a small twitching nose. “Go away, gollum! Sméagol can’t talk. Sss, sss, he’s busy! He’s sick! He’s too old. Go away! Go home!”

“Oh, I’m sorry, Sméagol. I can come back later.”

A pair of blinking eyes joined the nose in the window. “No, no, not later! Not ever. Why would she come at all?”

“She thought she was your friend,” Himben said, looking rather tall and stern for a nine-year-old boy.

Now Sméagol’s entire face was in the window- he had put his head out between the shutters and was looking around at all of them. “Sss. It is Presstien, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“How does she know where we lives?”

“Um. He knew.”

“He knew? Ach! This is her other little friends, isn’t it? The ones that call her a liar, eh? So that is why you’ve come!” His eyes narrowed, his anger shifting targets. “They are still calling her a liar! Well, she is not!”

“No, they haven’t been calling me a liar, they just wanted to see you too,” said Prestien.

“Did they? Was they curious? Not wise to be curious. Sméagol may be dangerous. He may pull you inside and eat you up. Gollum! They shouldn’t come.”

“We are standing too far away to be grabbed,” said Costion, looking nonplussed. “Except for Prestien. I suppose you can eat her if you want to.”

“No,” said Devrion in alarm, as Prestien’s parents would be very angry with him if she were to be eaten when he was nominally in charge.

“But you don’t eat people any more, Sméagol,” said Prestien, sitting down by the window. “You said so in front of the King’s court. My father told me.”

Sméagol considered her for a moment, and then with a clumsy little lurching hop, all of him was outside in the grass. “There,” he sniffed. “That’s what they’ve come for.”

As he had been surprised and wasn’t dressed to be seen, he was not wearing a hood, and his whole long spindly neck was out in the open with the knobby bones sticking out on the back of it. He had thin straggling hair that was stuck to his temples with sweat. His arms and legs looked like they had been taken off and put back on at the wrong angles.

“Are you really Prestien’s friend?” Himben asked.

Sméagol hesitated only a moment. “Yes,” he said. “She hasn’t lied. Not nice to say people is lying when they haven’t lied. Has she lied before?”

“No,” said Devrion. His face felt hot.

“Why would she lie now?”

“She wouldn’t,” said Devrion.

“And about something so foolish.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Please don’t be angry with them,” said Prestien. “They didn’t mean to hurt my feelings.”

This of course made Devrion feel even worse.

“We weren’t being mean,” said Costion. “We just didn’t see any reason why you would be friends with her.”

“Why not?” Sméagol demanded. “What’s wrong with her?”

“Nothing, of course, but why would you make friends with her?”

“They knows nothing about Sméagol except what she told them. Isn’t that right, my precious? They don’t know who we would be friends with or would not be friends with. Perhaps Sméagol is very friendly with everyone except for rude nasty little boys who say their friends is lying, gollum! So then why would they say she is lying? What would make them think she would do it?”

Devrion didn’t think Sméagol had seemed friendly so far, but he had no desire to draw attention by saying anything.

“She’s always making up stories,” Costion insisted.

“Making up stories isn’t lies,” Sméagol said, squeaking with exasperation. “Even I know that!”

“I’m sorry, Prestien,” said Himben, turning to her. “I shouldn’t have said you were lying.”

“That’s okay,” she said. “He said he was sorry, Sméagol.”

“He hasn’t,” said Sméagol, looking up at Costion. “Nice and plump he is, isn’t he? Yes, he is soft, and he is close enough to grab now, we thinks.”

“I’m sorry,” Costion said. “But I don’t think you will really eat me.”

Sméagol yawned, showing his fangs.

“And,” Costion insisted, “I don’t think you’re fast enough to catch me.”

“I don’t know any longer whether I am or not,” said Sméagol. “It has been a long time since I tried to catch anyone. He might run and see. He is backing up- ha, ha! He’ll have to go a bit faster than that, won’t he?”

“Sméagol doesn’t really eat people,” said Prestien. “He’s joking.”

“No, no, he doesn’t eat anyone anymore,” said Sméagol. “Very nice Sméagol; but we’ll chase him if he wants to see if we’ll catch him. We may not.”

Sméagol looked skinny and weak, but he also had the lazy, confident air of someone who knows it’s well in his power to do what he boasts, and Devrion doubted it would be wise to test his speed.

“Have you really eaten people?” Costion demanded.

A look of unease flitted across Sméagol’s face. “Yes,” he said.

“What do people taste like?”

“Pigs.”

“That’s not very nice.”

“No,” said Sméagol. “It is murder, and it isn’t nice at all.”

“I meant it’s not nice to call us pigs,” said Costion.

“I wasn’t,” said Sméagol. “You asked, ‘what do people taste like’? And I said, they tastes like pig, only softer, and a bit better- gollum! I did not say, he is a pig, or he is shaped like a pig, or he is squealing like a pig, or he smells like one. I could say those things if he wishes it, but I did not. Now-“ He stopped and looked a little ashamed of himself. Prestien had raised her chin in exactly the same disapproving manner that her mother sometimes did.

“I am curious if I could outrun you,” said Himben. “But I don’t want to be caught and eaten. Perhaps we could run an ordinary race.”

“If he likes.” Sméagol looked a little too calm.

In the end, Costion, Himben, and Sméagol lined up for a race- and so did Prestien, even though she had much shorter legs, and admitted she knew she would not win. Devrion declined, saying someone had to call the winner. In fact he suspected Sméagol would win, and then gloat, and he found the idea unpleasant… but he was not altogether dreading the idea of Costion being gloated over.

And, as it happened, although Sméagol was as thin as a frayed string and his legs were shorter than Himben’s, he had a way of bounding forward like a frog and won handily. He laughed and said he had had much longer practice than the others and had his little tricks, but even so they would grow up soon and outrun Sméagol with their tall Man-legs no matter how much he practiced, which was more gracious than Devrion had expected- then he began to terrorize Costion by looking at him meaningfully and licking his fangs, which was just what Devrion had expected.

“Well, I’ve seen you,” said Himben, “and now I know Devrion and Prestien really did see you too, and that’s enough for me- I can go home.”

“I can go with you in case you need help,” said Costion, leaving with more haste than he needed.

“Say, Sméagol,” said Devrion, “I should like to race you, as well, but- I don’t care for so short a race. Perhaps we could race to the wall?”

Sméagol gave him a sideways glance. “No,” he said.

Sméagol had chosen the length of the original race and had chosen a distance he could clear in two leaps. Devrion suspected that he slowed down a great deal after making two leaps and there was something in that sideways glance that said Sméagol had guessed these suspicions, and did not want to outright confirm them.

Devrion also suspected that Sméagol could easily catch up to someone trying to run away from him before that person got more than two leaps ahead. “Do you really climb the wall or do you just make the guards think you do?”

“Now that is silly!” he said with a smile- a real one that touched his strange luminous eyes. “How would Sméagol make the guards think he’d climbed a wall? They watches us the whole way up! We are not magic.”

“Will you climb it now?”

“No. Not now. We are tired.” He began to move back towards his window.

“Sméagol?” Prestien asked.

The creature paused.

“My friend Faussel said you told her a story.” Prestien began to pick at her sleeves.

“A story? When?”

“It was raining and you told her about the War.”

This was the first Devrion was hearing about it. Maybe Sméagol really was friends with everyone else in the city.

Sméagol sat in the grass. An odd change came over his face- he looked old and tired. “I don’t have nice stories to tell. But perhaps one day… if she comes back I will tell her someone else’s story. I am finding them. Keeping them.”

“I don’t want to hear someone else’s story- I’d like to hear yours.”

He shook his head. “I told it already. To the King.”

“Oh. I see,” said Prestien.

“We has nice stories,” Sméagol wheedled. “That aren’t ours. We just took a very nice one from an old lady near the shopses, didn’t we?”

“I will listen if that is all you want to share.”

“Yes, yes. Later!”

“Later,” Prestien agreed. “Good night!”

Sméagol vanished into his window, and Devrion took Prestien by the hand, leading her home.